re: the poor bastard stepchild of VS

That is funny. It is also sad, because it applies.

I personally don't do a lot of contract programming. Almost none. So this image is not a big deal for me (except that my other programming friends look at me kinda funny). But the contract programmers out there must be really frustrated. I actually did a contract less than a year ago and I experienced this problem. They had some stuff done in Access. I had a look. The basic data design was flawed in many ways. I told them I could get to the point that they were at in a few hours using VFP. And I would fix the design flaws that I pointed out to them. Okay, go for it.

A day later I get a call and they say they would prefer to use Access because it is a MS product. I tell them oh, VFP is MS too. They say oh. Okay. They say, well will we be able to make changes to the program. I say do you have a programmer on staff? If not, don't make changes whether you can or not. But, by the end of it, I said fine, I'll do it in Access. I don't want the responsibility of something happening down the road and them saying "If only it was done in Access."

The problem is that if you have to push a product too hard, you are putting your neck on the line. If down the line they say "Why the heck was this done in Access?!?!" the answer is "Because that is what you wanted."

Joe

P.S. Next time I will just say no. Access was frustrating to me. It is not how I want to spend my time away from work. VFP on the other hand is fun. I don't mind spending some of my time away from work working on VFP.


>Hi JimN ---
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>SET SOAPBOX ON
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>I guess I'm really tired of being a pariah in the Visual Studio family of developers. Although VFP is getting some press, there almost seems to be an active discouragement on MS part to attract new developers or use VFP for enterprise solutions. And what really frosts my ass is that most of us doggone well know that VB and Access choke on moderate to large scale 2-tier apps -- this is where VFP excels. Now, all else being equal, VB is probably more flexible for n-tier. Still, VFP does what it does very well and there is absolutely no logical reason for it to be the poor bastard stepchild of VS.
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>SET SOAPBOX OFF
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>>
>>I recollect JVP also complaining that VFPers really haven't "made the committment" to attend TechEd.
>>This may be true, but what should it really matter for the *content* of the session? Excluding VFP on such a basis effectively eliminates any possibility of exposure by non-VFP folk. And, as we read here, it raises the question of VFP's place in VS. If it makes *us* (VFP community) wonder then imagine what non-VFP folk must be thinking!
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>>Sure, attendance at VFP sessions there may well have been low, but this approach guarantees that it is ZERO. What can anyone learn from that???
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